India the great equalizer
M.K. Gandhi coined the phrase "Sarva Dharma Sama Bhava" meaning “all path's lead to the same destination”.
When I walk the streets of a city in India, I see what India is all about. Teeming with people, going about their work, kids going to school, women doing their daily chores, but all stop by the neighbor place of worship even if only for a few minutes, to meditate with folded arms. If very busy, they will stop momentarily on the street, remove their shoes and bow down with folded hands, before moving on.
In one block, you might find a temple, a church and a mosque of multiple denominations. It is a marketplace of religions, but they don’t compete for customers. They try to outdo the others gently by keeping their place of worship clean and beautiful. They might greet their neighbors going to a different place of worship. But desecrating them or their place of worship is a sin in all religions - which they will studiously avoid at all costs.
Why Modi and the RSS are not the right leaders for India
As I see how religion is the glue that holds India together, I realize why Modi and his ruling party, the BJP, and their idealogue the RSS, are a great danger to India as we know it. By trying to disrupt the harmony that is India, the BJP is trying to roll back hundreds of years of harmony. The people are wiser and have curtailed the power of ruling party. But India’s wisdom and harmony cannot be taken for granted. Many a civilization has been done under by politicians.
It is quite possible for the opposition lead by Rahul Gandhi to counter Modi’s “Hindu” supremacy with a “Non-Hindu” supremacy. But his recent speech in the House of Parliament shows that Rahul is wiser and possibly convinced in the multi-religiosity of India.
Why modern Atheists are wrong
When I think about my own upbringing, I realize that religion was deeply woven into my daily life.
In fact the only time we focused on religion was when I and my siblings got ready to go to my school in my school uniform. We made sure there were no religious marks on us. This because Father Leon Jungblut, the Jesuit priest from the Netherlands insisted on running a secular school. The school had a beautiful chapel next to it, that I sometimes wandered into. But most students hardly paid attention. Father Jungblut was very impressive. He spoke great Hindi, composed (and made us sing each day during the daily meeting) an anthem which was again wholly secular and patriotic. He would come over to meet the parent in the evening - word would spread on our street that Father Jungblut was on the prowl.
When I left India for the US, I had time to expand my reading. I read amazing books like Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, Richard Dawkin’s books - The Selfish Gene, The God Delusion and countless others, all of Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens. I was deeply struck by the clarity and rational arguments that these scientists and philosophers made and became a “devout atheist”.
I read Neurologists like VS Ramchandran (Phantoms in the Brain) and became convinced that there is a “religion gene”. I for one, have it. My scepticism in the supernatural cannot be shaken.
However, as I achieve the wisdom of age, I can see how wrong my idols Dawkins, Dennett and Hitchens have been in their arguments.
They should be arguing beyond the religion gene. As scientists and Darwinians, they should be presenting arguments that show people how to live with the religion gene. How to appreciate and further science and nature and the beauty therein. How to achieve Consilience (as E.O. Wilson put in his book) and harmony for the betterment of humanity.
Why I support Ayaan fully
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, another of my Atheist idols, has recently switched beliefs and has become a Christian. I wrote about it recently. To summarize my post, I completely agree with her argument and am very happy for her discovery - that she has the religion gene (my hypothesis) and is now on the path to happiness.
I fully support and indeed envy those who have this predisposition to believe in something beyond.
My beliefs have changed and at the same time remained the same
While my religion gene is quite non-expressed, and my scepticism still very intact, I now have a better understanding and appreciation of those who have an expressed religion gene. I have an intuition that my kind are restricted naturally to about 20% of the population.
I can also see how peace, harmony and progress can only be achieved by allowing religion to flourish - whether it be an organized one, or a new one based on new ideas and perhaps even AI.
Of course there must be civic regulations on religions. The temple, church and mosque or any new age religion can only co-exist if they don’t impinge on others and the right to a safe and quiet civic minded environment. Rule of law must take into account these variations and come up with a common denominator that makes sense with adherence to the rule “your right ends where mine begins”.
Someone (can’t recall who) describes his lack of religion as “I believe only in nature” - which I like because it leaves room for the magical, the inspiring, and the sublime. There is plenty in nature - and in our many man-made worlds of art, science, technology.
I went through a similar journey though I quickly found Dawkins a bit smug and his arguments at times dishonest. Hitchens still inspires me as I feel he embodies the beauty of language, art, and other ways humans create meaning.
I tend to feel religion is more and more being replaced with other ways of creating meaning and examining philosophy. More and more when I’m in a religious setting, I find myself able to appreciate what’s good - the feeling of connectedness it encourages, the meaning it’s given to my relatives and ancestors, the music and art it inspired.
Zakir Hussain said something when he taught a class at Princeton: for musicians, both Hinduism and Islam are true - in a way, music is a religion that inhabits both worlds. (I might be imprecisely paraphrasing here).
Similarly, it’s hard to listen to Bach and play Bach and not be, at least in an abstract sense, religiously moved.